Imparting Grace

Monday, November 7

Falling Back

The dream of the "Fall Back" time change:

The reality:

Does anyone else feel this way?

Thursday, November 3

Hello, friends, and welcome to the weekly Grace at Home party!

Whew--is anyone else worn out today after staying up late to watch the World Series?! Wow, what a game. Huge congratulations to the Cubs. The Curse of the Billy Goat is no more!

Here are some links from last week's party that caught my eye.

Paula from Sweet Pea showed us how to make this wood box centerpiece. Paula's tutorials are the best!

Diane from An Extraordinary Day rediscovered the joy of autumn when hiking with two young friends. Such encouragement here!

I'm always looking for new soup recipes, and this one really caught my eye: Pattie from Olla Podrida made cream of tomato soup with a bit of pumpkin for extra Fall flavor.

As for me, I'm excited that I finally have finished the living room project redecorating project I started THREE YEARS ago--but mostly I'm thankful for the lessons I learned in the waiting. Please let me know what you think!

A big thank you to everyone who joined last week's party! I'm so grateful for each person who links up each week. If you've been featured, feel free to grab the "I was featured" button. I'd be so proud if you displayed it!

Now for this week's party! Grace at Home is a place for you to share anything related to making your home a place of grace. I invite you to link posts about

DIY projects
decorating
recipes
hospitality
homemaking tips
parenting
marriage
faith
self-care
soul care

Whatever you do to make your home a place of grace, I'd like to hear about it. Here's what I ask of you. Please include the permalink to your post, not your blog's home page. Please let people know that you've linked up. No more than three posts per person, please. Note that if you link a post here, you are giving me permission to share your post, including a photo. And visit at least one of the other party participants--that's what really makes it a party!

Wednesday, November 2

Thankful at home

Three years ago, I proudly shared with y'all my new living room. Some of you may remember:

With advice from Darlene Weir of Fieldstone Hill Design, I had worked on the room for months, and I was so happy with the way it had turned out. But one part of the room wasn't finished.

Although I'd searched diligently, I had not been able to find art for the one solid wall in this room.

Years ago, this wall housed my collection of crosses.

That wall had become a bit too busy, though, so I decided that I wanted to go with something much simpler when I redecorated this room.

And that was it. I knew I wanted something simpler, but what? Darlene suggested botanical prints and found some lovely botanicals that I could download for free, but those weren't quite what I wanted.

So I finally went ahead and posted those photos of nearly-complete room, certain that I'd find just the right artwork soon.

That was three years ago.

All this time, the wall in my living room has been completely empty except for the mirror. And do you know what?

I'm thankful for that.

I'm grateful that I didn't get what I wanted when I wanted it. The truth is, my soul needed this time of waiting, of not having just what I wanted when I wanted it.

Turns out that I needed to wait for a lot of things--and the waiting hasn't killed me. In fact, doing without something I want is really good for me.

I didn't rush to fill the blank space with any old thing just so it would be filled. I simply waited and tried to look at the empty space as a gift, knowing that some day it would be filled with something beautiful--or not. And if it was never filled, that would be okay.

This year, when I visited a charming art gallery in Northern Michigan, my eye fell upon some lovely antique botanicals from England. They were hand-colored in 1825 and had been perfectly preserved. My heart caught in my throat as I counted them. . . 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8! They were reasonably priced, and because I bought all eight, the gallery owner reduced the price by another 10%. The manager of my local Frame Warehouse worked with me so that I could have them framed just the way I wanted, including museum glass. (I have no affiliation with Frame Warehouse, but their service and prices were fantastic.)

And here's my living room today:

At Darlene's suggestion, I disregarded the first couple of feet of wall space on the back wall of the room, centering the furniture and artwork with the seating area rather than with the whole room.